Looking for an apartment

Where to find a home of your own?

NAL youth apartments

NAL youth apartments are for 18‒29-year-old, working and soon to be working young people. An NAL apartment will provide you with an enjoyable and functional home when you are starting independent life. The apartments are reasonably priced, often studio or two-room apartments that are located along good traffic connections and that have proper common facilities, such as a sauna and a laundry room.

Take note of the necessary attachments and make sure you have them before filling in and submitting the application. Carefully fill in every section of the application. The application will only be valid for three months, so remember to renew it. When a suitable apartment is about to become available, you will be invited to a tenant interview. In large cities in particular, the housing queues can sometimes become long, which is why you should also look for apartments provided by other landlords. You can ask the NAL local association of the town in which you are looking for an apartment directly for more information about the apartments and applying for them.

Organisations and foundations

There are also organisations, foundations and other entities that lease state-subsidised rental apartments:

Rental apartments provided by the city and the municipality

Municipalities own more than half of state-loaned or interest-subsidised rental apartments. The rents of the apartments are determined according to the break-even principle, meaning that the rent will primarily only cover the capital costs from the construction work and the maintenance costs of the property. The apartments are affordable and you can live in one for as long as you want. When choosing the tenants, priority is given to those in the most urgent need of housing and the applicants with the lowest income and the least money. You can find more information regarding municipal rental apartments and applying for them on municipalities’ websites, and the most common way to apply for an apartment is with an electronic apartment application.

Student apartments

There are student apartments in all of the largest student cities. You can apply for an apartment if you are studying at an educational institution after primary and secondary school. Additionally, couples can apply for a family apartment if one party is a student. The apartments are usually leased in order of application, so you should apply for a student apartment as soon as you have been accepted into an educational institution. Some student housing foundations accept applications even if you are yet to be accepted. You can live in the student apartment until the end of your studies.

There is usually no specific application period for student apartments, and you can apply for them year-round. You can find more detailed and town-specific information regarding application instructions and periods at: www.soa.fi

Free market

You can look for free market housing online and in various papers and magazines. Anyone can apply for a rental apartment on the free market.

You can apply for an apartment online by filling in an apartment application or by contacting the contact person given in the advertisement. Useful links regarding rental apartments on the free market: